I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, for 25 years and extensively written about it for the last five years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing scholarship have included The Huffington Post, Salon, and Film Threat. Follow me at @ScottMendelson.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

'Catching Fire' To Pass 'Iron Man 3', 'Frozen' To Top $300m

Two of the biggest films of the year will be passing some pretty impressive and important box office milestones either today or tomorrow. Sometime between today and Wednesday, Disney’s Frozen will plow past the $300 million mark at the domestic box office (it was at $296m on Sunday). Either today or Wednesday, Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will surpass both the $408m domestic total of The Hunger Games as well as the $409m domestic total of Iron Man 3, making Catching Fire the biggest domestic grosser of 2013 (as of Sunday, it was at $407m). So much for conventional wisdom about female-centric blockbusters.

When Frozen passes $313m sometime over the next week or so, it will surpass The Lion King‘s original theatrical release to be the biggest-grossing Disney animated film ever on initial release. At the moment it is merely the second-ever non-Pixar film to hit that $300m milestone, and the first non-sequel animated film to do so since Finding Nemo, which earned $330m in its original 2003 release. And that’s not counting the hundreds-of-millions (billions?) of dollars from merchandise sales, soundtrack sales (it’s number 1 on the Amazon and iTunes charts), and the eventual Broadway musical.

At the moment, and discounting inflation, Frozen is the third-biggest non-sequel animated grosser ever after Finding Nemo ($380m) and The Lion King ($422m), and the only reason it won’t top those two is because of recent 3D-reissues that pushed their totals mostly out of reach. Absent those recent reissues, Frozen would be the biggest grossing Disney animated film ever and the biggest grossing non-sequel animated film from any studio. And for the first time since Monsters Inc. and Shrek dominated the box office in 2001, Disney Animation has once again become an unquestionable force to be reckoned with alongside those (DreamWorks, Pixar, etc.) that have challenged their throne.

When The Hunger Games: Catching Fire topped $400 million late last week, it became the first franchise in history to have the first two installments hit $400 million. Yes there is inflation to be accounted for, but Hunger Games did it without the 3D up-charge that has been so prevalent over the last four years, although it did have that IMAX advantage. I presumed that at least some of the audience who showed up for Hunger Games would pass on the second installment, having sampled it initially out of curiosity without the desire to make a return trip. I was wrong, or least I was reluctant to predict another massive domestic performance the second time around.

Catching Fire opened almost identically to the first film ($158m vs. $152m) and now will end up earning around $430m domestic, or just a bit more than the $408m domestic gross of the first one. The consistency makes it not implausible that all four chapters of the series will end up in the $400m range. If that happens, it will have the largest per-installment average in franchise film history, ahead of Chris Nolan’s Batman films which average $390m per installment. When it passes Iron Man 3, it will be the first unquestionably female-centric star vehicle to top the annual domestic box office since The Sound of Music in 1965.

Meanwhile, Disney’s Frozenhas shown the kind of legs usually associated with James Cameron films, earning $93 million over its five-day Thanksgiving weekend debut and still pulling in $20 million on its sixth weekend of wide release. With little real competition until Warner Bros.’ (sure to be huge) Lego Movie on February 7th, Frozen could very well end up surpassing the $367m domestic gross of Despicable Me 2. If that happens, it will be the fifth-biggest animated grosser behind Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3 ($415m), The Lion King, and Shrek 2 ($441m).

The critically-acclaimed, buzzy, and now very leggy fantasy (it’s at 4.4x its Fri-Sun debut and isn’t remotely done) has now out-grossed every Pixar film save for Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3 and will likely top the worldwide grosses of every Pixar film save those two as well (it’s at $638m and going strong). It benefited from a true perfect storm of art and commerce coming together in true harmony. It is unquestionably appropriate for one of Disney’s biggest grossing animated films to be a female-centric princess fairy tale, the sub-genre for which they are best known.

It received terrific reviews, kid-friendly previews that sold the film to tykes without spoiling its pleasures for adults, which in turn built superb word-of-mouth among parents for a holiday season without any real kiddie competition to contend with over Christmas or the New Year. Disney’s marketing campaign was one they could be proud of both because it worked and because it allowed audiences to discover the film’s pleasures for themselves, which in turn helped fuel the word of mouth. Some carped about the misleading kid-friendly ads, but they snagged the kids while the film itself surprised the parents.

Lionsgate has much to take pride in as well. Despite initial rumblings that the film was somehow a disappointment because it “only” opened to $158 million, the well-liked sequel withstood the competition of Frozen and The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug. Maybe it will get to $1 billion worldwide, maybe it won’t. But it is an unquestionable success and almost a rarity in a current climate where sequels tend to basically gross identical figures to their predecessors, with less domestic but more overseas. It could have easily gone the path of Spider-Man 2 ($373m vs. $405m), Star Trek Into Darkness ($228m vs. $257m) or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ($261m vs. $317m),

They did it with another non-spoilery ad campaign that revealed barely a frame of the film’s second half, once again leaving the narrative twists and turns of the games themselves to be discovered by paying customers. As anyone who has seen the anemic results for The Host or Beautiful Creatures, it is not easy to create a phenomenon from young-adult literature. I took issue with the bread-and-circuses nature of the publicity machine, as it undermines the film’s messages about infotainment distracting the masses from corruption and oppression. But it obviously worked in terms of creating today’s biggest stand-alone film franchise.

And, oh yeah, both films are completely female-centric. It is beyond sad that such a thing is still a big deal in 2014. But it is and thus these milestones are truly important beyond box office trivia. Frozen and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire have done more than made copious profits for themselves. They have shattered the myth that female-centric genre films are akin to box office poison. The year’s first and fourth-biggest grossers are female-centric genre entries. Coupled with the $669 million and counting worldwide total for Sandra Bullock’sGravity (with $255m domestic, it’s the seventh-biggest grosser in America), it is well past time to admit that the gender of the lead character is all-but irrelevant in terms of drawing male and female audiences.

Both Hunger Games adventures have grossed more money domestically than any comic book film outside of the last two Batman pictures and (adjusted for inflation) the first two Spider-Man films and the first Superman. In an industry dominated by fantasy-laden action spectaculars, Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen is the biggest superhero currently operating in Hollywood. Frozen, despite being of the dreaded “fairy tale princess” sub-genre that Disney swore to retire a few years back, has vastly out-grossed all of the boy-friendly franchises (Tron: Legacy, Prince of Persia, John Carter, etc.) that attempted to ape Pirates of the Caribbean. Frozen was everything that Disney claimed they didn’t want to make anymore, but rather than run away from their heritage they merely refined the formula and made it better.

If the film is good (or at least is well marketed), men and women will show up. These films don’t just represent the idea that reasonably-budgeted films about women and aimed at women can succeed (The Heat, Bridesmaids, Twilight) even if men don’t show up, although they often do. Frozen, Catching Fire, and Gravity prove once-and-for-all that genuine blockbuster grosses can be accumulated with a would-be blockbuster that happens to star an actress as with one that happens to star an actor. We’re almost at the point where female-centric genre films, when they get made, are expected to do as well as their male counterparts and (almost as important) aren’t held to a higher standard when they fail.

Whether or not Gravity, Frozen, and Catching Fire completed the work begun by Mama Mia! and Twilight in 2008 remains to be seen. But in their singular successes lies proof, indisputable evidence, that female-led studio releases have the same potential to be blockbusters as male-centric ones. Hollywood has no excuses anymore.

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I am confused at why you seem to report mostly on domestic box office while you have stresses many times recently about how little domestic matters in the big picture. Yes, Catching Fire will top Iron Man 3 in the US, but will it reach the $1.2 billion worldwide total? Not likely.

“When Frozen passes $313m sometime over the next week or so, it will surpass The Lion King‘s original theatrical release to be the biggest-grossing Disney animated film ever on initial release.” ====================================

A ticket to see The Lion King cost about $5.00. A ticket to see Frozen is about $10.00. (or more)

Anyone see the problem with comparing the box office totals of films that came out years apart?